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It's not just the M277dw's size that makes it feel like a tweener, sitting somewhere between a personal printer and a workgroup printer. Although the M277dw produces great print results and can quickly handle most office print jobs with speeds up to 19 pages per minute, the printer has some shortcomings that limit its appeal as either a personal office printer or as a shared printer.
We liked
The M277dw is a solid office printer that can handle most documents. Print speeds for PDFs, PowerPoint decks, Excel spreadsheets and Word documents were fast, with sharp text and nice color saturation.
The compact size of the M277dw makes it versatile for use as a personal office printer or for a shared workgroup, provided you don't mind frequently reloading paper into the small paper tray.
We disliked
As a workgroup printer, the HP M277dw falls short on a few key areas. First, the printer ships with a single document tray that accommodates only 150 sheets of paper, whereas rivals typically can hold 250 sheets. Second, the M277dw lacks duplex scanning ability, which limits its utility as a workgroup scanner.
If users are looking to adopt the HP M277dw as a personal printer in an executive office or home office, complex remote scanning places a heavy burden on the average user. Inherent with laser printers, those with a keen sense of smell may not want to place the M277dw on their desk as there is a faint odor coming from the system due to the heat generated in melting the toner when printing.
Final verdict
As a workgroup printer, the M277dw trades duplex scanning and a high volume paper tray for a more compact size, yet as a personal printer the M277dw's complicated Mac scanning setup may turn off busy executives unwilling to dig into the printer's settings. The M277dw makes sacrifices on both ends of the spectrum in HP's attempt to keep size down, and unless you're only after solid prints, there may be better offerings in the multifunction department.
Enterprise users sharing this printer in a team or bigger office will appreciate HP's JetAdvantage Private Print technology, which will hold jobs in a cloud queue until the user releases the job for printing by entering a PIN into the printer. This ensures that confidential documents won't be picked up by a colleague accidentally.
The M277dw is a solid printer, but one whose identity isn't fully thought through. With solid enterprise features for a workgroup printer, it's still held back by a miserly paper tray capacity. For offices with high volume printing needs, a professional inkjet can offer similar features with even lower per-page printing costs.
